Or High Water
by eirabach
Summary: A repository for my 5B speculative drabbles / headcanons. Based mainly on filming spoilers. Rating subject to change. Unashamedly Captain Swan.
1. Or High Water

_**I wrote this wee drabble on a pa**_ _ **ge from a car ma**_ _ **g whilst I was waitin** **g for my car to be MOT'd. Because why not, right? Based on the 'oh-look-a-door-in-a-cemetery-how-very-mysterious' filmin**_ _ **g spoiler for 5x12.**_

 _ **Not mine. Be good to my babies ABC *intense stare***_

* * *

It's like they never left.

For a moment Emma believes it, believes that all their efforts, their magic, their _deals_ have amounted to nothing but a bank of fog in a familiar cemetery and the ringing of the death knell for her crumbling heart.

Her _efforts,_ her _magic,_ her _goddamn deals and she feels every tear she's refused to shed filling up her lungs until she's drowning, drowning –_

"I guess we're not in Storybrooke anymore," her father lays his hand on her shoulder and it gives her just enough strength to tremble.

"Do you feel that?" Snow hefts her bow, brow furrowed. Something skitters down the back of Emma's neck.

"Feel what?" Robin's hands twitch to follow Snow's lead.

Regina reaches for his elbow to comfort, to steady, and Emma schools her jealous sneer into a determined sort of scowl and wonders just how deep a stain the darkness has left.

Deep enough for this, she hopes.

"There's something about the air…" Snow trails off, eyes flickering between Rumpelstiltskin and Emma waiting for… well, something.

Emma takes a deep breath. Her mother's right, there is something odd about it, a sort of cloying stickiness that makes it hard to breathe back out. There's a permanence to it that makes her head spin; once you're in, there's no backing out. The fog swells and swirls and smells vaguely of sulphur and Emma clutches the ring round her neck and thinks _we'll see about that_.


	2. Stop All the Clocks

_**I offer my apologies to W.H. Auden for the title theft and to Adam and the Ants for co-opting a line from 'Stand and Deliver'. Spec based on Storybrooke filming spoilers for 5x12.**_

* * *

 **Stop All the Clocks.**

* * *

She supposes it makes perfect sense.

It really is a dreadful coincidence that every significant event, every unutterably shitty, outstandingly awful moment in Emma's life has occurred within the sixty seconds that make up 8.15. It's the sort of coincidence that Buzzfeed articles are written about, and yeah okay she knows all about number recognition and confirmation bias, but she's the _Savior_ and the product of _True Love_ and her whole life is supposed to be a fairy tale (some fairy tale) and coincidences just don't happen to Emma fucking Swan.

The final, undeniable proof of this is not only that she's now in Hell, but guess what time it is.

Maybe that's why she's so oddly unsurprised by the appearance of the Underworld. Storybrooke is burning and creaking, the clock tower lying shattered in the street, that damned clock face is glowing an appropriately eerie orange as Robin reaches a hesitant hand towards it. Emma spots a charred, yellow lump out of the corner of her eye and chokes back a surprised little sob. Of course. Of _course_. She hasn't lost enough today. What's next? Will the devil take her record collection?

 _I know when you're quoting something._

 _I love that you never know what it is._

She's not crying. She hasn't got time for crying.

To stop the burn behind her eyes she concentrates on the people who are milling around, paying Emma and the others no mind - as if this destruction is perfectly normal. Which, she supposes, it is in a way.

This is just Storybrooke on steroids.

Regina is also watching them, but with wild eyes, her right hand clutching desperately to Henry's backpack whilst her left searches for Robin's.

"This is not what I was expecting," she hisses from between clenched teeth.

David, his gun in hand, draws closer to Emma's side.

"I don't get it," he sounds wary, "why would Hell look like Storybrooke?"

"Why would it not?" Robin grumbles. Emma and Henry share a small, sad smirk.

Rumpelstiltskin, who has held himself separate from them and now is marching ahead, tsks loudly.

"Not Hell, dearie, the _Underworld_. And like any world it holds kingdoms within it."

Emma jogs slightly to catch up with him.

"What do you mean?"

He cuts his eyes at her and she is hard pressed to recall the way he cowered before her just short days ago. Hard pressed to remember why that was such a bad thing, too, come to mention it.

"Just what I say. This is merely one land within the greater Underworld itself. A sort of," he waves his hand dismissively, "welcoming delusion for the recently deceased."

Regina glowers at him, "So it looks like Storybrooke because we'll find that _comforting_?"

"I don't feel especially comfortable," Snow hisses, bow string drawn tight.

"I thought the souls of those we've lost were supposed to greet us?" David says, "Wouldn't that be a bit more comforting than whatever this is?"

"Oh no," Regina shakes her head, "I didn't sign up for any of this. I agreed to get your pirate and get out of here."

"But wouldn't you want to?" Snow relaxes her stance, looking around with suddenly much more interested eyes, "what if there's a chance we can see some of our own dearly departed again?"

Regina's knuckles turn white where they curl over Henry's shoulder.

"They're not dearly departed, " she spits, "they're _dead_! And as far as I'm concerned they can stay that way!"

"Oh, my sweet girl."

The sugar soft voice comes from over Emma's shoulder, but she doesn't need to see the terror in Snow's eyes, the horror all over Regina's face to realise who is speaking; the sick tremor of recognition has already crawled up her spine and settled in her aching chest.

She turns slowly to face the slight, harmless looking figure. Cora is dressed in a warm brown coat and an incongruous pair of ear muffs, but she still wears the glinting hungry smile of a villain and her honeyed voice drips with poison.

"What would be the fun in that?"


	3. Dawn

**A/N: Escape from the Underworld angsty stream-of-conciousness stuff. Personal therapy post 5x11. Thirty minute fic so do excuse any errors please thanks!**

* * *

 **Dawn**

* * *

Their footsteps echo through the bowels of the library-that-isn't. Emma tries to pick out individuals - the squeak of Henry's sneakers or the sharp click of Regina's heels – but mostly she concentrates on trying to keep her eyes focused forwards until they're stinging and every tendon in her neck burns with effort. Her half-heart hammers brutally in her chest in time with the mantra in her head:

 _Don't look back._

 _Don't look back._

They're almost out. She can see the literal light at the end of the tunnel in the soft glow of a misty Maine morning. Somebody, she doesn't want to guess who, touches her shoulder and her whole body shudders on the exhale. There are dark shapes hovering in the doorway and she hopes to god it's Granny and Leroy and Belle and…

Ha, she hopes to god. If it wouldn't break her focus, she'd laugh.

And then, just like that, it's over.

She's out and Leroy is shouting something and the clock tower is glistening above them in the sun and her bug, _her bug_. Almost without meaning to she carries on walking until her outstretched hands come to rest on the driver's door, bracing herself against it and focusing on the way the window distorts her reflection.

She doesn't know how far behind her he – they – were. She doesn't look back because she _can't_ , not now, not when they were this close, not…

"Emma."

She watches the way rust flakes gather under her nails with the force of her grip.

" _Emma._ "

She shakes her head, her eyes burning, but she hasn't cried once in that fucking place and not _now,_ come on, fucks sake.

"You can turn around now," he almost sounds amused, like she's being ridiculous.

She lifts her head and lets out an undignified little snort. Her life is ridiculous.

"How do I know it's not a trick, how do I…" and then she's spinning on the spot, cold metal at her wrist and the sun in her eyes and _that_ is definitely why she's crying, dammit.

"No tricks, love. I'm here, you're here, we're _all_ ," Killian gestures vaguely at Leroy and Emma makes a noise that might be a laugh, "here. You did it, Swan."

Her hands find their way from his chest to his face.

"Did you ever doubt she would?" David's beaming from ear to ear, Snow tucked under his arm and Neal tight to his chest. Killian quirks a smirk that's clearly meant as a response, but his eyes never leave Emma's.

"Honestly, the ritual sacrifice did give me pause," his nose wrinkles in distaste, "and the hellbeasts."

Emma finds that tears are just pouring out of her now, and she feels small and silly wiping her nose on her jacket sleeve like a middle schooler because he's here and he's breathing and he's looking at her like… like…

Like she never thought she'd see again. Like this red-faced, snotty woman before him is some sort of miracle – his happy ending made semi-hysterical flesh – and it hits her all wrong because he has never thought he deserved her and she wasted _so much time_ …

A ragged, desperate _'I'm sorry'_ bubbles up from deep inside, and then she's in his arms, pushing her face into his jacket and her hands into his pockets and the whole town is watching but she doesn't _care_. Not now. Not now she knows what it's like to live without this. She wants to crawl inside his skin, give them all the show they came for, wishes they'd all just go away.

"Are you, love?"

His voice sounds funny, and when she manages to look up she realises he's crying almost as hard as she is. He's asked a question. Is she sorry? It had come out without her putting any conscious thought behind it, so she bites her lip, shakes her head to clear the fuzz of tears, and tries, really tries, to think about it.

She thinks about the way he'd begged to die – twice. The way she'd dragged herself and her whole family literally through the bowels of hell. She takes mental stock of the traumas they're all bound to bring back to lay at Dr. Hopper's door. She thinks of the way his hand feels against her back and his breath moves the little hairs at her hairline.

"I'm sorry I was selfish," her voice is hoarse, "I'm sorry I hurt you. But please don't ask me to regret saving you, because I _can't_. _"_

His face gives nothing away and her hands fist in his lapels.

"I love you," and god it's been like blowing a dam the way those words just fall out of her now, "I love you so much, and this is it, this is my happy ending, you and Henry and that stupid big house and even if you never forgive me I –"

He kisses her, hard and fast with his fingers in her hair and his teeth at her lip and it doesn't feel like absolution – not at all. But here, at the end, it feels like a start.


End file.
